Hands
by Elaienar
Summary: Riza muses on the peculiar quality of Roy's hands: their complete lack of any distinctive aspect aside from paleness. Expanded to include various random Royai fics.
1. Hands

I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.

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**Hands**

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It was past dawn, and Roy Mustang was asleep. 

Riza Mustang turned her head on her pillow and stared sleepily at Roy's face. Sleep had softened the resolute line of his mouth into something like uncertainty, and his eyebrows were furrowed over his closed eyes. The untidiness of his hair – the short, dark locks were tumbled messily into his eyes and over his cheeks – combined with the almost worried expression on his face gave him a slightly incongruous boyish look. His left hand lay on his pillow beside his head, palm-up and half-clenched.

Riza propped herself carefully up on her right elbow and gazed down at her sleeping husband, with her eyes half-shut against the glare of the sunlight that was shining through the thin curtains. She could see that he was breathing: the blankets rose and fell almost imperceptibly with every breath; and his right hand, half-covered by the sheet, gave one tiny flexing movement and then was still again.

Roy's hands were pale and nondescript; they were neither large nor small, neither plump nor thin, neither fleshy nor bony; the blanched fingers with their short nails were neither long nor short, neither blunt nor tapering; they were unremarkable hands.

How strange, thought Riza.

Neat, middling, indistinct hands. One would not think, to look at them, that these hands could be immovably firm and indescribably gentle by turns. One would not think, to look at them, that these sun-starved hands never fumbled or shook, or that they had a grip as strong and unrelenting as iron. One would not think, to look at them, that a single abrupt movement from these pale fingers could spell death for scores.

How melodramatic, thought Riza.

Her own hands were smooth, slim, and the fingers tapered; they were unmistakably the hands of a woman, despite the calluses on her palms and the long, puckered scar that ran diagonally across the back of her left hand, its whiteness contrasting oddly with her pale brown skin in much the same way that Roy's blanched hands contrasted with her healthy brown ones when they touched.

The Fullmetal Alchemist's hands, now – well, one of them was scarred and (usually) dirty; his hands were strong, healthy, and curiously careful – when he was thinking about what he was doing. His brother ... it had been months now, and Ed was always pressuring him to eat more, but Al's hands were still almost dead white and painfully thin, the sharp shapes of his bones and the bluish lines of his veins showing through the virtually transparent skin. Al's hands were delicate, like a sick child's, or an invalid's hands.

Winry's tanned hands were unexpectedly reminiscent of Ed's: smaller, plumper, but crisscrossed like his with tiny scars, and callused; Winry's hands were small and strong and deft.

Fuery's hands, dimpled and fumbling like a child's; Havoc's hands, angular and peculiarly elegant – a daredevil's hands, of course; Armstrong's burly hands, with their bony, rough knuckles; Breda's hands, beefy and clumsy-looking, but actually capable; Falman's hands, thin and dry. Hughes' hands, long-fingered, dark-haired, and quick...

And Roy's hands...

Roy's hands, as inexpressive as Roy's dark eyes. They would have been extraordinary by reason of their being so completely unremarkable, so very characterless, if it had not been for their paleness. They looked oddly small without their neatly embroidered gloves; Riza thought fleetingly and incoherently of Kimbley's tattooed palms ... _ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you_ ... Roy's palms were callused; he had insisted on repairing everything in their home by hand, without alchemy.

Roy's hand lay limply on the pillow, white except for the gleaming band of gold on the ring finger. Riza lowered herself back down onto her side, and placed her own hand on it, and her ring clinked quietly against his. Roy stirred and sighed, and his hand closed around hers. They fit together, palm to palm, fingers intertwined, sallow-pale against pale brown.

Riza smiled and went back to sleep.

_Finis_

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**A/N**: ...Umm ... so, I seem to have a thing for hands now. I can't imagine why. I apologise for inflicting this senseless piece of unreasonableness on you. I think I meant it to go somewhere when I began it, but if I did, I can't remember where it was I meant to go. 


	2. Seize the Moment

I'm having a really hard time thinking of a clever way to say "I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist". Anybody got any ideas?

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**Seize the Moment**

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Roy hadn't meant to do it, really. He'd had the small wooden box in the pocket of his coat for weeks, ever since it – or rather the simple ring it contained – had caught his fancy as he hid from his escort behind the cluttered shelves of an antique shop. He didn't know why they had insisted on providing him with a set of matching bodyguards; after all, he'd made it through the rebellion practically unscathed, and he wasn't even Fuhrer yet. (And he wasn't going to be Fuhrer any time soon, either, if they insisted on him finishing all that paperwork first.)

He hadn't meant to buy it, either, because he knew he had no use for it, but once the bodyguards had started looking elsewhere and it had been safe to leave the shop, he had found that his wallet was significantly lighter and that the little box was nestled comfortably in the pocket of his coat. He wasn't sure how it had happened.

He certainly hadn't meant to bring it with him that afternoon. After all, he was only seeing Havoc off at the train station. (The man wasn't even going to be gone for a month; Roy didn't know why he had insisted on being waved away by everyone he knew in Central.) It had been by force of habit that he'd plucked it off the table and dropped it into his pocket on his way out the window (the table the box was on was in a corner and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered "on the way" to the window, but he wasn't going to think about that). He hadn't even realized that he had it until after the train had gone and the others had gone, and he and Riza were walking slowly towards a teashop which she said sold excellent muffins. Roy didn't particularly like muffins, but he had been anxious to postpone the inevitable reunion with his bodyguards, and a cup of tea sounded good. He had put his hands into his pockets in an attempt to warm them, and his fingertips had brushed the worn wooden surface of the little box, and after that he hadn't been able to forget it, for some reason.

(He had told himself, a little wearily, that he had absolutely _no idea_ why he couldn't stop thinking about the box, and how nice the ring would look encircling a slim, brown, blunt-nailed finger.)

Riza had led him past two tables of chattering old ladies in silly hats and one table occupied solely by a bearded, smiling man in a shabby suit with a red carnation in one fraying buttonhole, to a little table in a corner. She'd slid into a chair with an ease that suggested long acquaintance, and had spoken with cheerful familiarity to the waitress who had come to take their order. The tea and the muffins hadn't been long in coming, and they'd chatted light-heartedly about their friends as they waited for them. He hadn't asked about her, though, even though he'd been trapped in meetings and had hardly spoken her in weeks, despite the fact that their desks were only separated by a few yards of space and a wall or two. (He tried very hard not to think about the mountain of paperwork.)

Perhaps it had been the tea. At any rate, as soon as he had downed the steaming liquid, he'd found himself talking enough for two, not _complaining_, of course, but ticking off his friends on the tips of his fingers: Havoc on vacation, Fuery thinking about retiring to marry that pretty little girl – Minnie or Melly or something – and wanting to become a greengrocer, the Elric brothers back home, probably stuffing their silly boyish faces with apple pie, Falman spending all his time in the library, researching for that book of his, Breda in Drachma, of all places, working as a diplomat. And Riza, of course, working as his secretary, but the both of them so busy that exchanging greetings in the mornings and farewells in the evenings was the most conversation they'd had in over a month. It was infuriating.

He hadn't said that, of course. What he _had_ said, fingering the small box in his pocket, was: "Since everyone's getting so spread out, I was wondering if you'd like to become a permanent fixture – not just at the office. We should stick together now that everyone else is going off on their own."

And he slid the box across the table.

_Well, that's done it,_ he thought ruefully.

(Later he told her that it wasn't so much that he had seized the moment as it was that the moment had seized _him_.)

Riza caught the box up deftly in one hand and opened it, her expression of careful respect changing to one of surprise and then wonder as she stared down at the ring inside it.

After a moment she set it back down on the table, the lid still open, her brown hand lingering on it with a touch that was almost a caress, and looked back up at him. Her face had always been expressive, an open book to anyone who knew her, but now her eyes were serene and unreadable. He tried read her emotions in the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head, the movements of her hands – one resting on the table beside her teacup, one still cupped around the little wooden box, but all the emotion her could find was in the halting, quizzical lilt in her voice when she spoke. "Isn't this a bit...."

"Informal?" suggested Roy, lightly. "Yes. I know this isn't right – there ought to be violins and roses – "

Here the bearded man at the next table, who had been listening to their conversation with undisguised interest, plucked the brilliant carnation from his buttonhole and passed it to Roy with an affable smile.

"Thanks," said Roy. "Here, Riza. Where was I? Oh – and I know I ought to go down on one knee and say 'Dearest, darling, beautiful Riza, will you honor me with your fair hand', but the floor's dirty, and these are my good pants. And anyway I might as well begin as I would go on, and it'd only mean massive amounts of paperwork and having to put up with me when I'm cranky from running a country – at least until I get that democracy going – and probably a lot of other petty irritations I haven't thought of. What do you say?"

"All right," said Riza.

It was the answer more than the casual tone in which it was spoken that startled Roy. He stared at her: she had picked up her tea and was sipping it with her eyes downcast.

"Er," he said. "Well – thank you."

Riza put her cup down and looked up at him, her eyebrows set at an amused angle. "You didn't expect me to say yes, did you?"

"Not really, no," admitted Roy.

"Why not?"

"I didn't – " he began, and broke off. And, casting about for the right answer in a host of half-formed thoughts (the smooth skin at the base of her neck; the way her hands wrapped around the grip of a pistol, firm and careful; the rubble of cities and the blood of martyrs; the remembrance of her presence just to the right and slightly behind him; _aren't you tired of watching my back_–?) he settled unconsciously for the one which embodied all his fears and then reduced them to absurdity:

"Well," he said, "_I_ wouldn't want to marry me."

And the tension dissolved unexpectedly into laughter.

_Finis_

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_**A/N**: I didn't mean to write more Royai, but somehow it happened. Actually, I've had the last half of this and the first ... third? maybe half? of another Royai ficlet written for about as long as _Hands_ has been up here, and just this morning I wrote a whole 'nother one, which I'll post in a few days when I've edited it some, _if_ I can get over the horrifying suspicion I have that it's more or less totally OOC. And then I'll finish that other one, and then I'll finally write that _other_ other one that I've been thinking about for a few months. And then maybe I'll move to the moon and grow green cheese. Yeah. Thanks for reading!


	3. Unspoken

Please consider this fic to have been properly disclaimed.

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**Unspoken**

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There are things they don't need to say to understand.

For example, Riza knows that Mustang wants to send her away. Despite – or rather because of her loyalty and her obedience (not blind, but by her own choice, and fully aware of where his dreams could end) he wishes to sever the ties connecting them, lift the heavy burden he placed on her shoulders when there was no one else who could bear it, and let her go.

He knows that she'll follow him wherever he goes, and he doesn't want her to follow him down the paths he fears he'll have to take. He wants to watch her walk away from him because he knows that she never will.

Riza knows that in the lower right-hand drawer of his desk Mustang keeps papers which could end her life in the military, send her back to her lonely house with a hefty retirement salary and commendations from every officer she's ever served under, and maybe a few she hasn't. She knows he's had the papers since before they were transferred to Central. Mustang's connections have always been useful; plenty of people would pay their weight in gold to have papers like them, and she doubts that the Colonel parted with so much as a counterfeit coin for them.

Mustang knows there's no point in hiding the fact that every morning, when he arrives at the office, he takes the papers out and tries to decide to sign them.

Riza knows, too, that it's not affection or sentiment that keeps him from filing the papers and sending her away into hateful security. In the game he plays she is his queen, his first follower, his most trusted subordinate. He needs her eyes and ears throughout the military grapevine, her ability to adapt to any situation, her skill with guns, her way of bringing his thin web of supporters together into something that is closer to a family than it is to an alliance, her hawk-eyed watchfulness. If he wants to win the game, he must have her – not by his side, but behind him, watching his back, and the small comfort he would gain by keeping her safe is not enough to outweigh the loss of so much else.

He knows that even if he sends her away she won't be safe.

Sometimes Riza wonders what she'll do if the colonel decides to dismiss her, despite the fact that she knows – and so does he – that there's nothing to wonder about.

She could refuse to go, but if he ever makes up his mind to send her away, nothing she can say will sway him. He never cares what his subordinates think, unless it has an adverse effect on their performance; what he cares about is the safety of his followers and the success of their missions, in that order.

She could kill herself, of course; not melodramatically, but simply to illustrate a point: _If you don't have me you can't win, and if you lose I'm as good as dead anyway_. He would understand – he always understands – but they would never get the stain out of the carpet.

She could obey and go away to live in her house, empty and silent for so many years, and maybe study for a degree or write a book or donate to charities. She wouldn't travel, because she hates travelling, and she would never see him again. If he dismisses her, he'll never come after her again, and she'll never go to him.

She knows that these are just silly fantasies, because if he ever sends for her to tell her that he is sending her away for good, he'll be telling her that he's no longer the kind of man who can do what he wants to do: that he's the kind of man who will sacrifice himself and his honour and his dreams and his followers and his country to set his mind at ease about one person. If he does, he'll be doing it deliberately, the outcome of his decision as clear in his mind as it is in hers, and she won't commit suicide or obey or protest. She'll draw the little handgun from the holster at her side and shoot him between the eyes.

He knows that she knows this, and yet he still keeps the papers in his desk and looks at them every morning, and then puts them away without signing them because he needs her in his game. She knows that it's a little play, perhaps to remind her of her duty, perhaps to remind himself that he's not keeping her there because he _wants_ her there, because that would be the wrong reason to let her stay, but simply because he needs her.

They both know that they need this to remind them how precarious their situation is, how thin the line they balance on, but they keep this knowledge hidden away in some dark corner of their minds and pretend that they don't.

Some of the things they understand are much better left unsaid.

_Finis_

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_**A/N:** _Bunnies ate my brain._ That's my excuse. Sorry.


	4. Second Thoughts

Can we just pretend that I've done the disclaimer already?

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**Second Thoughts**

"Oh, God," said Mustang.

In the rest of the bar, the clamor of voices raised in laughter and conversation, of mugs and tins and glasses clinking against tables and other vessels continued unabated, but at the table in the corner furthest from the door all noise and movement ceased. Jean Havoc paused in the act of raising a glass to his lips and shot a confused sideways glance at the Fuhrer, and Fuery twisted in his seat on the other side of Mustang, staring at the Fuhrer with his face creased in puzzlement. On the other side of the table, Breda paused in the middle of a particularly long, gruesome joke he was telling Falman, who was looking down at his drink gravely and probably not hearing a word he was saying, and the Elric brothers and Doctor Knox broke off their heated whispers on some vague alchemical subject and turned to stare as well.

"Oh, God," said Mustang, again. "Riza."

"What about her?" asked Breda, squinting at Mustang's pale face.

Mustang said, with abrupt finality: "I need to get drunk."

"Easy there, Fuhrer," said Havoc, and set his glass down. "You already _are_ drunk. Any more and you'll wake up sometime next week, all hungover, and then it really _will_ be 'Oh, God, Riza– '"

"'I didn't mean to miss the wedding–'" grinned Breda.

"'Please don't shoot me'," finished Havoc. "What's the matter?"

Mustang leaned forward and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. "I can't marry Riza," he hissed.

There was a silence, and then Falman looked up blearily from his drink and said, "You should have thought of that _before_ you proposed to her. Sir."

"I did – only I'd forgotten until now!"

"He means he hasn't been drunk since before he proposed," interjected Doctor Knox. "He always gets depressed when he's drunk."

"Buck up, sir," said Havoc cheerfully, slapping Mustang on the shoulder genially. "She won't eat you."

"Yeah, what's the worst that could happen?" said Breda.

He and Havoc began a flow of cheerful banter, while Falman retreated into his drink, Fuery swirled his beer around, and the Elric brothers resumed their argument without Knox, who had dropped out in favor of gazing absently through a wall. Mustang pushed his glass away from him, pondered for a moment, and then announced grimly:

"I'll spend all my time at work and she'll get bored and run away with the postman."

"Right," said Havoc, cheerfully. "Your job is now in the same building as your living quarters, remember, Fuhrer?"

"The Lieutenant wouldn't run away with a postman," chimed in Fuery.

Mustang looked gloomily between them. "She wants children. I'll be a horrible father. They'll all be warped."

"But you're good with children," said Fuery, mildly astonished.

"Yes, but," said Mustang, and abandoned that line of defense. "I don't know how to make women happy."

"Oh, _please_, Fuhrer," grinned Havoc.

"I'll get cranky and argue with her and she'll hate me."

"You know," said Edward, looking up from a diagram he was drawing, "you're a real wimp when you're drunk."

"Be a man, Fuhrer," said Breda.

"It's just the pre-wedding jitters," said Havoc. "Trust me, there's nothing – "

"_I have blood on my hands_!"

The words fell on them like a blow.

In the silence that followed, Mustang ground his teeth and began, in a tight, brittle voice, "I can't – " but Knox leaned across Fuery and made a swift, practiced jab at the Fuhrer's neck. His voice cut off abruptly, and he fell forward onto the table.

"Hey," said Havoc, mildly. "That's a not a nice thing to do to a man at his own bachelor party. What _did_ you do?"

"Pressure point," growled the doctor, briefly, and ran a critical eye over the others at the table. "Last time he got drunk enough to say anything about having blood on his hands we had to dig half a platoon out of the rubble. Fuery, you're not drunk. Can you handle these three?" This with a gesture towards Breda and Falman, who were attempting to arm-wrestle with the arms of their chairs, and Havoc, who had put his head down on the table halfway through the doctor's second sentence and was singing quietly and out of tune.

"Yessir," said Fuery, soberly, and began the difficult task of routing his comrades out of their comfortable chairs.

"Maybe you two had better go with him," said Knox.

"I can drive," said Edward, indignant. "I haven't had anything to drink, anyway. Still a minor, remember?"

"Hm," said Knox. "On second thought, I'm old and tired. I'll let you two handle him. Know where Chris Mustang's place is?"

"Er," said Alphonse, while Edward spluttered furiously behind him. "Yes, but doesn't the C – the Fuhrer live in the presidential suit now?"

"He does," said Knox, gruffly, "but Hawkeye's been staying with Madame Christmas for about a week now."

Edward grumbled under his breath, but Alphonse nodded understandingly. "We'll take care of it. Help me get him out to the car, niisan."

"Useless idiot," growled Edward, but he pulled one of Mustang's arms over his shoulders without undue violence while Alphonse stooped under the other, and the brothers set off for the door behind Fuery, who was herding his three charges in the same direction.

Knox stared after them, his eyes lingering on Mustang's limp form, then tossed back the last of his drink and got out his wallet.

"Idiot," he said.

-o-

Madame Christmas' place had shut already when the Elric brothers arrived, but lights were still on in the upper windows, and when Edward rapped on the back door one of the girls was there almost instantly, giggling at the sight of the unconscious Fuhrer and making clucking sounds with her tongue between giggles.

"Come on in," she said, holding the door wide while they staggered past her. "I knew he'd get sloshed, he's been dying to ever since he became acting Fuhrer. I thought he'd do it the night before the inauguration," she added, leading them up a carpeted staircase, "but he didn't, and I lost two thousand cenz. The haul from this'll make up for that, though."

"You were _betting_ on whether he'd get drunk?" said Alphonse, scandalized.

"_And_ on how drunk, exactly," said the young woman. "I think Vanessa bet that he'd drink until he passed out. She'll be collecting a pretty penny on that."

"He didn't pass out," grumbled Edward. "Doctor Knox knocked him out."

"Apparently he was about to blow up the bar," added Alphonse, helpfully.

"Re-eally," drawled the girl, looking over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow. "Hm. Okay, this way."

They followed her up another set of stairs, this time with more difficulty, because Mustang had begin to stir, and kept on twitching his feet as if he meant to try to walk and kicking the two boys instead. After the tenth twitch (which somehow went awry and caught Edward on the shin) Edward opined that the Fuhrer was awake enough to walk by himself.

"I'm tired of dragging his drunk butt up stairs," he added.

"Niisan!" said Alphonse, reproach in his voice. "He's not really awake."

Mustang chose that moment to make an incoherent noise – something like "nnnnnhrgh" – and raise his head to look at his surroundings in a befuddled way. "Where are we? What happened to the bar?"

"You blew it up," said Edward.

"Damn," said Mustang, briefly.

Alphonse managed to look indignant and sympathetic at the same time. "_Niisan_ – you didn't really blow it up, Fuhrer, niisan's just pulling your leg."

"Oh," said Mustang. "Good. Where are we going?"

"Riza's room," said the girl, cheerfully.

Mustang looked up and her and appeared to think for a moment. Finally, he said: "I'm not drunk enough," in a resigned tone of voice.

"I hope she nails your hide to the wall," growled Edward.

"Niisan!"

"What? He can't fire me, I'm retired."

"I'll have you arrested for treason," said Mustang, blearily. "Thanks, Al, I can stand. Edward, would you call my secretary and tell him I'll be back in an hour or so?"

"Do it yourself," grumbled Edward, but he ducked out from under Mustang's arm and turned away, and Alphonse, with a last worried glance at the Fuhrer, followed his brother back down the stairs.

"You didn't have to run them off like that," said the young woman. "Well, here's her room. Give me a hug before you go in – thanks – and try to remember what Madame said she'd do to you if you hurt little Riza."

Mustang grimaced. "I'd rather not."

The girl laughed, not unkindly, and he watched her move away in the direction the Elric brothers had gone. Then he turned to the door, squared his shoulders, and knocked.

-o-

Riza hadn't been expecting anyone, but when she'd retired to her room earlier that night, an uneasy feeling had settled on her, and instead of getting undressed she'd pottered around aimlessly, pushing wooden boxes against the walls, disassembling and reassembling her guns, re-packing things she knew were perfectly fine the way they were, and pausing now and then in her restless movement to pat Black Hayate or rub behind his ears.

The knock at the door did not surprise her. She got up from the chair by the vanity, the barrel of a pistol still in her hand, and went to open it. That it was Roy at the door did not surprise her, either, although she couldn't think why.

"Good evening, sir," she said.

He looked down at her, his face set in a familiar expression: easy smile, slightly raised eyebrows; debonair, she might have called it, except for the dark smudges under his eyes.

"Good evening, Riza. Mind if I come in?"

"Not at all, sir," said Riza, and stepped back, holding the door open. "There's only one chair...." she began, but he waved away her apology and ignored the chair, opting instead to sit on one of the wooden boxes, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees, his fingers laced together, and his chin resting on the backs of his linked fingers.

He was gazing across the room, not looking at her, and as she shut the door and moved back to her chair, she wondered what her face looked like. She knew she had little control over her expressions; even when she'd been working as Fuhrer Bradley's aide, she'd been unable to keep herself from showing exactly what she thought on her face.

To avoid facing him now, she turned slightly away and began putting the pistol back together. "How was the party, sir?"

"Good," said Roy, and she could hear the hesitation in his voice. "I haven't had that much fun in months."

Riza lifted her eyes briefly from her work and looked over at him. Roy's smile was gone, and his dark eyes were fixed on the wall opposite him.

After a long moment of silence he said, neutrally, "I suppose you know why I'm here."

"Yes, sir," said Riza. "You've come to ask me to reconsider."

"You always know," he said, looking over at her with a smile that tried to be careless but only made him look weary.

"You know what my answer is, sir."

The smile fell away. "Riza, this isn't what we want."

"I disagree, sir." The last piece slid into place, and Riza put the gun down before turning to meet his eyes. "This _is_ what we want. Everyone has reservations, sir – not just about who they trust, but who they're willing to let trust them."

"You always know," he said, again.

"Yes, sir."

"Isn't it enough for you to trust me as your superior?"

"You trusted me with your life, sir."

Roy made a helpless gesture. "But this is – and you are...."

She said nothing, and he looked away.

"You're trustworthy. You're _good_. These hands...."

He stood up and held them out to her, palm-upward, and in the flickering red light of the lamp she could almost imagine that they were stained with blood.

"No one should ever put their trust in these hands."

"The fate of an entire country rests easy in them," said Riza.

The reddened hands contracted into fists. "They didn't _give_ their trust to me, I took it from the ones who held it before me, and only because it had to be done. You don't have to. You could have said no. Why didn't you, Riza?"

"You know the answer to that, sir."

For a moment she thought that he might shout at her, but he only looked away and then sat back down on the box, his head in his hands. "It's not safe," he said. "I don't protect people, I kill them."

"I was in the war too," she reminded him.

"You only wanted to help."

"So did you. And you have."

"But not before...."

Riza waited, and he held his hands up again, staring at them with clouded eyes.

"I'm afraid to touch you."

She knew it. He had rarely touched her before their engagement, simply because there was no reason to, but afterward he had, once or twice, and she had felt it: he wasn't awkward, it wasn't that he was afraid that she would mind, but every touch had ended with the same careful withdrawal, as if it had been something he'd done on impulse and then thought better of.

"I'm afraid to be near you."

She knew that, too. He didn't show it, but then he never did, and she could feel it anyway; the light banter they exchanged was brittle, a thin veneer over a host of doubts. He flirted with her in the exact same way that he flirted with Madame Christmas' girls, except that when he flirted with them she didn't get the feeling that the flirting was there to keep himself from realizing how afraid he was.

"You trusted me with your back once before," he said, "and I betrayed that trust. I broke that promise on the battlefield in Ishval. _I_ broke. You don't deserve that."

"Every soldier is broken," said Riza.

"I've already proved untrustworthy where you're concerned," he told her. "That saying – two wrongs don't make a right."

"But two halves make a whole," she said, "as long as they fit together."

She could see his eyes changing, the darkness fading away, and he leaned back against the wall, and, for the first time in months, looked at her without regret shadowing his eyes.

"Do we fit, Riza?"

"You know the answer to that."

Roy sighed. "I'm an idiot," he said. "Are you sure you still want to marry me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good," he said, firmly, "because I don't think anyone else would be able to put up with me."

"Of course not, sir," said Riza, and smiled.

_Finis_

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_**A/N**: Ummmm.... I cannot keep from thinking that this is the dumbest thing I have _ever_ written in my entire life. It's not even really in character - well, the Mustang here is similar to anime!Mustang, but this is the mangaverse - so I have no idea why I wrote it. (I imagine that if Mustang and Riza get together, they won't be dramtic about it at all - they'll just show up at work one Monday morning and when someone asks what they did over the weekend, they'll say "Oh, we were bored so we went down to the registrar's office and got married," and that will be that.) Anyway, this wraps up my short series of Royai fics. Thanks for reading!


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